Billionaire Brother Gave Me an Empty Card Now I'm Dumpster-Diving Thanks for the Love novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Slap

Dustin promises to keep her secret and sets the van's no-favors rule; next morning Brynn, whose allowance froze too, slaps Erin in front of the quad, the video goes everywhere, and Dad calls.

"He knows the card doesn't work," I said. "He stood in front of forty people this morning and told them it did."

Dustin looked at the ID in his own hand, then at the bowl in mine.

"Caleb called me this afternoon," he said. "He said his sister had run up eighty million dollars and he was afraid for her."

"I never spent a dollar."

"He sent me the statement."

"Then look at me," I said. "Look at my shoes."

He looked.

The left sole had split at the toe, and I had taped it.

He was quiet for a long moment.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay what?"

"Okay, that isn't a girl who owns a yacht." He handed the ID back. "I'm not telling anyone you were here. Nobody comes to the van with a name."

I put the ID in my pocket.

"I'll wash my own bowl," I said. "And I won't owe you anything. No favors."

"The soup is free. That's the whole rule."

"Then I'll come, and I'll wash my own bowl."

"Good." The corner of his mouth moved. "The second bucket."

I almost laughed, and it frightened me how much I wanted to.

He packed up around me and pushed a paper cup of tea into my hand.

I walked back to the dorm with it.

That night I put Gran's quilt over the radiator that didn't work and slept with it around my shoulders.

It smelled like her laundry soap.

In the morning I got to the quad early, because I wanted to sit by the fountain and read before economics.

I had my book open when someone said my name.

"Erin."

Brynn stood on the stone path in a white wool coat, with two friends behind her.

Her face was pale, and the skin around her eyes was swollen.

She was the only person in the house who had been kind to me.

Now she stood with her jaw set and her arms crossed.

"Brynn," I said. "I wanted to..."

"My allowance was frozen at six this morning."

I closed the book.

"Caleb says it's because of you," she said. "He says the card you were given pulls from the same account as mine, and you drained it."

"I never touched it. It was declined at the dining hall three times."

"Don't." Her voice shook. "My lease payment is due Friday, and my card won't swipe at a coffee cart."

"Brynn..."

"Everyone who looks at me now thinks I'm the thief."

"I'm sorry about your card, but I didn't take anything."

A crowd was gathering at the edge of the path.

Students stopped with their coffees.

A boy lifted his phone.

"Four rolls from the kitchen," Brynn said. "That's what you took the other night. You stood in our hall and took bread from our kitchen."

"I was hungry."

The words came out of me before I could stop them.

For a second, something crossed her face.

Then it closed.

"You were hungry," she said, "while you spent eighty million dollars."

"Brynn..."

She slapped me.

It was a hard, flat sound in the cold.

My cheek went numb, and then it burned.

The quad was silent, except for the fountain.

A girl near the front breathed, "Oh my God."

I put my hand against my face.

I thought about Gran, and the quilt on the radiator.

Every foster home had taught me the same rule: keep your place by asking for nothing.

I thought: if I cry here, they'll all remember it.

So I didn't.

I stood up with my book under my arm.

"You're angry because your card froze," I said. "So is mine. Nobody is going to tell you why, either."

Brynn's hand was still raised.

She lowered it.

"Get away from me," she whispered.

I picked up my bag and walked past her, through the middle of the students, without hurrying.

At the stone arch someone said, "Is that the daughter? Look at her coat."

My legs shook the whole length of the library steps.

I made it to economics and sat in the last row, and I took notes with a pen that skipped.

My cheek had a red print on it that I could feel through the lecture.

By noon the video was everywhere.

A girl in my class showed it to her friend two seats away.

I heard my own voice say, "I was hungry," out of a tiny speaker.

It had a hundred thousand views by two o'clock.

At four it had a million.

I was in the stairwell of the science building, eating the last half of a bagel from my coat pocket, when my phone buzzed.

It was a number I had saved only once, because I hadn't expected to need it.

DAD.

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